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The Kayak Takes Shape When last we left the Kayak Build, we had the decks more or less established, but now we need to work on the rest of the boat.
The books all say the ends of the gunnels are first pegged together, then they are lashed to the stems and such. They take great pains to tell you not to glue/screw, or nail them. The boat must flex. Pilot holes first, then 1/4" holes
Drive in the peg . . .
The books say you should split the ends of the pegs and drive a wedge in there to expand the peg and fix it in the hole. I ain't got time for that, so I took our smallest drill and put a hole down the middle of the peg
Then drove in a toothpick. The toothpick is larger than the hole, so it expands the end, but without all the fuss.
Trim
Sand
Beautiful. 3 pegs because . . . why not?
This is tricky. The bows of one of these boats are one piece with two jaws. The lower jaw has slight spreader on it and the upper has a larger spreader. These spreaders allow the bow to pierce a wave then deflect the water out to the sides so the paddler doesn't get wet. On a "real" boat, the bow piece would be carves from a tree trunk or branch that has the right curve. I cut mine from a 1x12 and glued on the spreaders (1/4x3/8 of bendy oak - which I'll be using for the ribs.)
I glued on the spreaders then brimmed them to a length that made sense
Then sanded the ends down to minimize abrasion of the skin.
Bow done, it's time to start playing with the stern stem. We are cutting them from a piece of pine 1x12.
Stem pieces are lashed to the gunnels, and lashing need holes.
Lashing on the bow. Yes, the knots are a bad thing. I know that. Deal with it.
We noticed the bow deck beam was a little off - 3/8"! - so took corrective measures.
Here's the lashing of the bow. It is REALLY on there. I love lashing.
I'd forgotten to bring my drawing of the stem piece, so we made one overlarge and did a visual on how the boat will look. We were flying blind here, but Geoff is a NOAA Naval Architect, after all.
Yeah, that looks pretty good.
It did take some looking, though.
Once lashed on, Geoff cut off the excess.
The keel has a little 'wow' in it, but I think we can take care of that as we attach ribs.
And just for fun, we cut and bent a rib. No steam - the wood doesn't really need it. I have some reading to do for next week. I need to find out all about ribs. I see no reason why we can't have all the ribs in place by next weekend. |
